How to Waste Money on Information Technology

Your team of technology experts has been working with companies and their information technology for a long time. We’ve watched companies succeed and fail (happily, we’ve seen more succeed since we started working with them!), and we know IT is a big part of that. The right IT makes all the difference to a company’s productivity, efficiency, and bottom-line.

And the bottom-line is something we have to keep in mind all the time. Ultimately, we’re all business owners. Making money is at the core of what we do. No one likes to spend more than they have to, and everyone wants cost-effective solutions that work. But we’ve said time and again, good IT support isn’t about spending lots of money – it’s about spending money in the right way.

Good solutions don’t have to expensive – they need to be smart. They need to be focused on the return on investment – putting in the right amount of work and money in the beginning so you’re rewarded down the road.

OneSource Technology is all about proactive and cost-effective information technology for Wichita businesses.

Is your company spending your IT budget wisely? Call us at (316) 788-1372 for a free consultation to find out.

So we know how to help companies spend their IT budget the right way. We’ve also seen plenty of examples of how to waste money on IT as well. Here are a few:

Using “gamer” PCs for desktops or even servers:High-end video is a waste of money for most business purposes, and pretty flashing lights do nothing for server performance. Those kind of expensive PCs aren’t remotely necessary for most businesses’ daily operations.

Wasting your own or staff time to work on PC issues:Your time is better spent making money for your business. Doing IT work yourself hides the real cost, but hidden costs still show up on the bottom line. And it won’t get professional-grade results, meaning repeated problems.

Not planning your IT infrastructure:When you just buy products and equipment without thinking about how they’ll go together, you end winding up with a bunch of equipment and software that doesn’t do what you need. This is a bit like saying “Hey, they’re just computers, how hard can it be?”

Relying on Dr. Google to fix viruses:Trying to fix a suspected virus infection doing a Google search and downloading a PC “fixer” tool from the Internet can be worse than the original problem. It could turn out to be worse malware that what you’re trying to remove, and cost that much more to clean out later.

Loading up on unneeded software:
Lots of software comes with those special “free” add-ons they cheerfully encourage you to install. You have to be careful how much you say yes to. Lots of these add-ons aren’t remotely useful, and you can end up with systems practically groaning under the weight of all the added software.

Thinking that Bigger is Better:Lots of people who think they’re computer experts try to solve every IT performance problem by adding more RAM or a bigger hard drive. When you discover that it didn’t really help at all, you still have to call your IT people to fix the problem they could have corrected before you wasted all that time and money. Whoops!

Setting up ad hoc “file sharing” from someone’s desk:You’ve got a bunch of people who need to share files, so you take one of the PCs (the one that’s turned on most of the time because it’s the busiest), and share all the files off of it. It works. Most of the time. So what if it’s kind of slow (especially during the rush at month end) and you have to reboot it a lot? It’ll never truly crash and accidentally delete everyone’s shared files, right?

There are plenty of other ways to waste your money on bad IT, but everything boils down to assumptions. Too many people set themselves up as experts on information technology (often meaning quite well), and business owners find themselves convinced that their advice is right. But businesses have unique needs when it comes to IT, and the wrong solutions end up costing much more than the problems themselves in the first place.

For the right IT services and solutions for businesses in Wichita, trust in the experts at OneSource Technology.

We’ve seen what works, and more important, what DOESN’T. Learn more and schedule your FREE no-obligation review of your business systems by calling us at (316) 788-1372 or emailing us at solutions@onesourcetechnology.com.